[-35-] It was later that they proved their sincerity.  At this time he himself led the campaign against the Iapudes, assigning the rest of the tribes to others to subdue.  Those that were on his side of the mountains, dwelling not far from the sea, he reduced with comparatively little trouble, but he overcame those on the heights and beyond them with no small hardship.  They strengthened Metulum, the largest of their cities, and repulsed many assaults of the Romans, burned to the ground many engines and laid low Octavius himself as he was trying to step from a wooden tower upon the circuit of the wall.  Later, when he still did not desist but kept sending for additional forces, they pretended to wish to negotiate terms and received members of garrisons into their citadel.  Then by night they destroyed all of these and set fire to their houses, some killing themselves and some their wives and children in addition, so that nothing whatever remained for Caesar.  For not only they but also such as were captured alive destroyed themselves voluntarily shortly afterward.

[-36-] When these had perished and the rest had been subdued without performing any exploit of note, he made a campaign against the Pannonians.  He had no complaint to bring against them, not having been wronged by them in any way, but he wanted both to give his soldiers practice and to support them abroad:  for he regarded every demonstration against a weaker party as just, when it pleased the man whom weapons made their superior.  The Pannonians are settled near Dalmatia close along the Ister from Noricum to European Moesia and lead the most miserable existence of mankind.  They are not well off in the matter of land or sky, they cultivate no olives or vines except to the slightest extent, and these wretched varieties, since the greater part of their days is passed in the midst of most rigorous winter, but they drink as well as eat barley and millet.  They have been considered very brave, however, during all periods of which we have cognizance.  For they are very quick to anger and ready to slay, inasmuch as they possess nothing which can give them a happy life.  This I know not by hearsay or reading only, but I have learned it from actual experience as their governor.  For after my term as ruler in Africa and in Dalmatia,—­the latter position my father also held for a time,—­I was appointed[55] to Upper Pannonia, so-called, and hence my record is founded on exact knowledge of all conditions among them.  Their name is due to the fact that they cut up a kind of toga in a way peculiar to themselves into strips which they call panni, and then stitch these together into sleeved tunics for themselves.

They have been named so either for this or for some other reason; but certain of the Greeks who were ignorant of the truth have spoken of them as Paeones, which is an old word but does not belong there, but rather applies to Rhodope, close to the present Macedonia, as far as the sea.  Wherefore I shall call the dwellers in the latter district Paeones, but the others Pannonians, just as they themselves and as the Romans do.